The Tropical Gardener and Cook

Summertime blues ...

2014-03-05T03:20:00.000-08:00

Good evening ... or good morning wherever in the world you may be reading this ...
It's been an interesting few weeks in the garden, here in the tropics of Far North Queensland. We had probably 10 inches of rain a few weeks ago, but since then it's like the wet season has almost dried up. And yet there's still been a bit of rain floating around.
It's officially Autumn now of course which means we should really be coming into our growing season. We've been away a little bit of late and have another trip coming up soon, but hopefully after that we can get cracking and planting.
In the meantime, here's a few recent shots of what's growing and what we've been up to.

Yay! Finally some passionfruit. I never realised until relatively recently, but passionfruit vines die after a couple of years. So I was devastated when our previous vine died, but finally we've got some fresh babies growing. Yay!

Pawpaws have been fairly prolific this year. Forgive the wrong orientation. Too tired to correct, but you get the idea. Thinking I might throw a few in our new, whizbang dehydrator. Thanks Sis!

Capsicums. Seem to have been saved from the dog's jaws for some reason. Think some of these made their way onto Mr TG&C's home made pizzas tonight. Yumm.

Another prolific fruiter. Limes. This tree seems to bear fruit all year round. The other week I made a lime cordial - didn't have enough sugar (about half as much as needed) and it was the wrong sort (raw instead of white) but it's a good way to use them, anyway.

Bush lemon. Grow my pretties, grow!
What's growing in your neck of the woods?

There's a monster in the garden!

2014-01-03T00:38:00.000-08:00

As I write this, a small boy is resting his head on my right forearm. Very cute, but hard to type.
A few minutes later and he's happily eating his dinner - cheesy vegetable-laden fritters and water, followed by fruit. Even though he was a BLW baby, I've struggled to get veges into him. Sometimes he'll go for a room-temperature cherry tomato, other times not, but that's about all that I can get into him without disguising it. I guess since he came into our lives I've become a lot more conscious of our own diet and just how damn processed it is sometimes. While hubby and I both are "farm kids" by background, you just can't get fresh local produce all year round where we live. Unless you go to the local "markets" and even then, only a few of the stalls are local and you have to get up at sparrows to get there before they sell out.
So we try to grow our own. Living in the tropics of Far North Queensland, that can be quite a challenge but sometimes the garden surprises. For example, at the moment, we're enduring 30+ days and the humidity is most unpleasant. Yes, that's not as hot as many other parts of Queensland at the moment but it's still mighty unpleasant.
And so we would have thought that growing anything at this time of year was pointless, but I was rattling off to a FB contact what's growing in the garden atm and I was pleasantly surprised. We have lemons and limes, as we do almost year-round. There's also a few pineapples ripening. And there's capsicums growing in a special fenced off area (fenced off from a certain grey dog who has a penchant for bell peppers!).
But then in our main vege patch we've had basil growing for aeons and aeons and aeons. After our last crop including sweet corn and sweetpeas (now happily resting in the freezer) concluded, we decided to let the main vege patch fallow for the hotter months. But low and behold, a monster butternut pumpkin vine has sprung up.

Then there's a Jap/Queensland blue lurking down the back. (Is there a difference or is it like the KP/Bowen mango thing?)

Oh, and then there's a couple of cherry tom's hanging on in a shaded section ...

Oh yes, and here's the so-far safe capsicum ...

What's growing in your neck of the woods?

Inspired ...

2013-12-19T02:10:00.000-08:00

As anyone who follows me on social media might notice, I've had a bit of an epiphany of late. And it's all because of our fortnightly shop. After we got home, the boy was in bed asleep for the night and I went through the receipt to look at what was processed and what was not. Now, I should preface this by saying that we buy our meat from a local butcher (who I have blogged about before) and our fruit n veg from the local grocer - that is, anything we don't grow ourselves. But in this particular grocery receipt, there were four items that were not processed. Chicken breasts, eggs, avocado and something else that I can't remember. Pretty pathetic, hey. What am I giving my family? What is my little son ingesting??
So what could I make for myself? Could I become one of those people who makes most of their own food? Well, why not. We don't have a breadmaker - merely a very old, almost dead oven. But it made great bread. and I LOVED the kneading bit.
I'd like to try making flatbread. I'd also like to try to make a savoury snack biscuit. And why not yoghurt? And butter?
Well, I've sort of made my own fruit mince pies, seeing as it is the festive season. Though I did cheat and used store-bought pastry - somehow it's never worked for me here - I think it must be the humidity. But I made the fruit mince from scratch. That counts, right?
Last night I made lime basil sorbet (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/jamie-oliver/basil-and-lime-sorbet-recipe/index.html). Mine is very basil-y but definitely edible. Ingredients? Basil, limes, sugar and water. The first two were grown in our backyard. The sugar is the raw variety and the water is the rainwater variety.
Today I made my own Christmas cakes for the first time in my life. Here's the recipe as recommended by a good friend ... http://woolworths.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/Website/Woolworths/FreshFoodIdeas/Recipes/Recipes-Content/Traditional-Christmas-Cake. Bloody cakes. Smelt so damn good when they came out but I have resisted - two are going to be gifts and the other one is for us to take away. On said friend's recommendation, I did let the fruit steep in the alcohol for longer than recommended. And I used Mr TG&C's home made rum. That counts, too, doesn't it?
In the meantime, what's growing? Well the basil is ballistic, we've had a few pineapples (so incredibly sweet from such crap soil and little boy almost devoured a whole one in a day himself), still a few pawpaws, and pumpkins growing too.
What's growing and being produced in your yard and kitchen?
Happy cooking and eating this Christmas!
x

Using what we've got

2013-09-03T20:07:00.001-07:00

How many times do we go through our garden and think "Gee, I've got so much of that ... (insert fruit or vegetable) ... what the heck can I do with it?"
Believe it or not, we've had that situation with pawpaws this season.
We've never previously had much success with pawpaws here in the tropics, particularly in our dreadful clay soil.
But for some reason this year we've hit paydirt, so to speak.
There's been pawpaws aplenty, you could say. I reckon we've had probably 20, which is a bit of an issue when Baby TG&C doesn't fancy them. This boy eats almost every fruit known to man and woman-kind, but nope, not pawpaw. Well, hopefully it's a case of not yet.
So we can't dispose of them down his gullet.
Earlier this week we found ourselves in the situation of having picked four that were ripe with more still ripening on the trees.
What to do, what to do?
So thanks to Mr Google, we found a recipe that seemed to suit.
Now I would never have thought of this combination myself, but I tells ya ... it works!
And the other beautiful factor was that we could use so much of our own produce - our own edible ginger and our own bush lemon.
Now I've got a bit of a "thing" about bush lemons. I happen to think they're the best sort there is.
This is a bit of a relic from my youth I guess, when my folks had bush lemons "down the back creek". So every year when they were fruiting we would make a couple of treks down the back for a picking session.
This happened to coincide with the local country show and I know I won a prize at least once for "my" bush lemons.
Anyway, I have digressed, of course.
So here she is, the famous new recipe.

http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/pawpaw-and-ginger-jam-L9406.html

The ginger gives a nice surprising little zing and I really felt the lemon helped it gel, contrary to the recipe, which seemed to indicate it wouldn't happen.
Unfortunately I didn't have the blog on my mind when I was cooking so there are no shots of the jam in progress, but there are shots of pawpaws before and I've done you the service of taking some shots of the jam jars.
Enjoy!

Today we're making...

2013-08-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

A bloody big mess!
Yes, it's tomato passata.
What's the story?
Mr TG&C's tomato crop has been out of this world, this year. And we had over a kilo of beautiful, luscious, ripe tommy-toes gathering in the fridge. What to do with them all? There's only so many can be eaten on Sao's with cheese for afternoon tea and a cuppa.
And he wanted to do "something" with them.
Check out the recent tomato crop on the previous blog.
Having attempted relish and chutneys before and failed, I decided I wasn't up for that failure again.
And I had seen passata on some cooking show or other. So why the heck not?
Well, it's not difficult like Rosella Jam is.
It's just fiddly and rather messy.
Better clean up the kitchen before he gets home!
This is the recipe I used, though they all seem to be much-of-a-muchness...
http://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes/passata

Thanks SBS.
And in the absence of a tomato press, I was wracking my brains, trying to figure out how to squeeze all the goodness out. Tried our Christmas ham bag. Nup, no good, tomato guts went everywhere. So that was one dirty cloth to be washed.
Then I just got out a sieve and potato masher and did it that way. Seemed to be fairly effective though messy.
So in the end I reckon we ended up with about 1.5 jars (using our own basil leaves, of course). Which is ok. They're boiling away as we speak.
Wrapped up in a tea towel each. That's another two dirty cloths to be washed.
Why do I hurt myself so?
Till next time.

What a pithy,pulpy mess.

Note the splatter in the background. No, it's not a crime scene. Well, it's probably a cooking crime but only time will tell.

This is what I managed to reduce it down to - there was just the seeds and the skins (below) remaining.

Ta da!!

Of life and death ...

2013-08-26T04:08:00.000-07:00

What a morbid headline, I hear you say. Well, I guess you could say that. But there's a tremendous amount of it around at the moment, so it seems. There always is, I know. But it seems to be hitting those around us particularly hard of late.
During a recent wander around "my" grounds, I got to thinking about the cycle of life. (Gawd almighty, this wasn't meant to be a D&M - someone stop me now!!)

.....
....
Well, no one stopped me so here goes. There's so much death and sadness and pain that it becomes all the more important to appreciate the life that there is around us. In my view, that is.
The orchid that's never flowered before, that bloody rosella that seems determined to die (but I won't let it, dammit!), and the mandarin tree that just decided to up and kark it. (or cark it - either seems permissible?)
But then the tomatoes have gone great guns this year, the corn's been lousy, lettuce great, pawpaws prolific, pineapples on the grow, and bush lemons aplenty for pad thai.
Must do a lemon butter one of these days.
One of the constants in our garden is the lime tree. It ALWAYS has fruit on. The mango tree out the front on the other hand, never does. We're starting to think it's fruiting days are over. But it's still a beautiful tree and gives fabulous privacy.
What's growing in your garden and what are you doing with it?

Don't mind the spots. Just cut them out. Grown sans chemicals so worth a cupla spots.

Special variety of tomato known as the prolific lawn cherry tomato. Great for feeding little boys fruit straight from the plant. Big boys too!

Lett...uce pray!

Tomatoes.

Oh look, there's a tomato.

Tomato, anyone?

Need I say more?

So how's about the weather, huh?

Corn. Obviously. Hopefully we'll get something edible this time around.

Pineapple. Also obviously. Hoping to make a pineapple jam for a good friend - if the fruit survives the three of us!

Starting over

2013-04-25T02:58:00.000-07:00

Well, it's winter again so Mr TG&C has been hard at work planting seeds and then planting out the resulting seedlings. Well, those that come up. Not having a wonderful strike rate at the mo. What's yours like?
But we're not giving up and so far we have corn, tomatoes, snowpeas, capsicums and silverbeat planted in the vege patch.
Elsewhere in the garden we have a proliferation of pawpaws actually fruiting AND a few Jap pumpkins. These were a conundrum to me this time around as we had very few female flowers to pollinate the boy flowers with. Anyone got any tips on what it takes to create girl pumpkin flowers?
Anyway, here's a visual feast of what's growing ... and what's not!

Inspired

2013-03-21T23:35:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes I know. I've been a bad girl. But anyone with children can relate, I'm sure. So little Blake Nathaniel arrived just seven days after my last post and this is my first chance to get blogging since then.
He's a champion little felluh - great at feeding, great at sleeping. Just great, in a nutshell.
And after reading a couple of my favourite blogs, I decided to get my fingers tapping. Hence the "inspired" title of this blog.
Currently it's raining. Yep, it seems the wet season is here. It's funny, after just 13mm of rain a few days ago, the lawn instantly went from crunchy brown to luscious green. Nice.
Another of the big reasons why we live here.
So, to recap the last six months in the garden. For some reason the vege patch didn't do so well. I keep telling Mr TG&C that we need to do a pH test. Anyhoo, hasn't happened yet. Maybe one day.
We had an abundance of silverbeat, almost too much, lotsa lettuce, some cherry toms and lotsa snowpeas.
The capsicums (or bell peppers as he prefers to call them) didn't do so well. Even one plant that ended up under the mynah bird trap and was therefore protected.
Anyway, so 2013 is another year so here's to being inspired ... and doing something about it!
Oh, and if you're looking for a bargain, check this out!

http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/earlville/other-garden/yukkas-for-sale/1011076049

Absence makes the heart grow fonder ...

2012-06-03T02:20:00.000-07:00

Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
Oh, there is another excuse .... here it is!

Yes, we've been growing one of these for the last few months and our due date is almost upon us so as you can imagine, myself and Mr TG&C have been a little preoccupied.
However, in the meantime, here's an update on the garden. It's now winter here in the tropics of Far North Queensland and the weather has been rather magical. While we've had some rain over the past week, today we had a beautiful, sunny, 26 degree day and it was just perfect so the garden is starting to get going again.
Here's a sample of what's growing at the mo....

A few seedlings in pots, growing, growing, growing, getting ready for being planted out into the vege patch proper.

Our one-and-only orange. This tree is probably only about 18 months' old so I don't have great expectations of it just yet ...

This is a certain nawty dawg. Well, we love him, and he did chase some religious types out of the yard the other day (!!) but he's rather naughty too. If it's not picking almost ripe capsicums (now we have to put them in pots on the deck to protect them!), he's digging at the compost bin in a bid to get at something nice and smelly in there, or his latest trick is trying to get underneath Mr TG&C's mynah bird trap. Grrr. Any suggestions?

Rosella, rosella. Now, we've only got about three of these bushes in our yard and I reckon you need twice that many to get a decent crop for jam-making. However, I have found that if you pick as they're ripe, then chuck them in the fridge, they last a good couple of weeks until you're ready to get jamming. The other benefit of this is that the outer red "petals" aren't as tough to peel after they've been refrigerated for a while.

Mandarins. These are about the same vintage as the orange, but there's about half-a-dozen fruit on this one so we have high hopes of seeing some yummy sweet mandarins in the kitchen before too long.

Lime-alicious.This is the same era as the other citrus but seems to have more oomph than the others. He's been fruiting for at least six months straight. And they are BIG and JUICY.

Monstera deliciosa. I posted a pic of this fellow quite a few months ago now and thought I'd show you an update. He hasn't fruited yet but I can't wait for the day he does!

The existing yellow passionfruit vine. Yesterday Mr TG&C planted a purple passionfruit beside it, so hopefully it will look all nice and colourful when both are in fruit at the same time. What do you reckon?

Till next time. I promise I'll try not to leave it so long in future!
x

Wet season, wet season ... where fore art thou?

2012-01-15T17:52:00.000-08:00

Well, it's mid January and where oh where is this damn wet season? Bring on the rain, I say. Mind you, we did have 28mm at our place last night.
Despite, or perhaps because of the heat, the garden is going nuts at the moment. Plenty of interesting things fruiting.
Here's a sample...

Limes. Apparently the tree has decided to go nuts this year. So what to do, what to do? One solution was lime cordial. Yum. Find the recipe I used here: http://cocktails.about.com/od/makeyourownmixers/r/lime_cordial.htm. Another solution is my famous lime and coconut cake. This is for the work people tomorrow. Provided they're good!

Lime cordial concoction. The recipe says to let the rind sit in the mixture at least overnight before straining, then allowing to sit for another 24 hours. Anyone who knows me, knows patience is not what I am known for!

A bit off track here, but I just wanted to say it is possible to use everything. We bought a hot chook for lunches the other week and while there wasn't much meat left on it once Mr TG&C was finished with it, boiled down with some veges, it's made a couple of lovely chicken and vege pies and chicken stock. If I can do it, anyone can!

Watermelon. From the garden. Yumbo. Got another 3 or 4 still in the vege patch getting themselves ready for consumption. Also picked a pineapple yesterday but it was only a baby and unfortunately didn't make it to photographic stage. Take my word for it that he was yummy too.

Capsicums. In pots. On the deck. Because a certain grey person keeps EATING them! This is the only way to keep them safe. Nuts.

The lazy blogger

2011-12-21T02:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I won't say people have "nagged" me into writing the blog, but life has been a little, shall we say, crazy hectic. Holidays, house plans, etc etc. Life. It seems to happen, doesn't it.
Anyway, here's a little photographic essay of what's been happening of late.

Repotted fig tree. Even though couldn't see roots poking out bottom of previous pot, poor little thing was rather rootbound. So almost as soon as he was re-potted, he sprouted new growth. There's hope yet!

Rosella plants. These are the result of boiled rosella seeds. Anyone who has made rosella jam knows what I'm talking about here. So I thought I'd have a crack at planting the seeds and look what turned up. Fingers crossed I can grow some this time!

An orange. Well, it's a green orange so far. But one day it will be an orange. Hopefully. This is the first fruit produced by this tree. All the rest of the babies dropped off. This one being preciously guarded.

Eggplant. Growing like a weed now. We're not big on the fruit, but isn't it nice to know that we can?

Ahh, this is a bit of a sad story. This is/was a butternut pumpkin. While we were away he rotted. Better luck next time.

Lime. I think it's ripe, do you?

"Normal" pumpkin. Not ready yet, but watched eagerly every day. Great in all manner of dishes but my new fave is pumpkin and fetta quiche. Mmmmmm.

It's not edible, I know. But can you see the little green stick right next to my fingers? That, my friends, is a GrassTree. Planted from seed purchased from Bunnings. Seed packet cost $3.85. Think it contained about 20 seeds. Cheaper than $40 for a big plant....

Do tomatoes grow randomly at your place? I let them go when they come up wild like this. I figure they must like that spot for a home. Am I nuts? Probably.

Laden passionfruit vine. Only problem I have, is once they fall to the ground and I pick them up, they're rotting. Anyone got any tips on what's going wrong?

Another damn zucchini. Don't you know you shouldn't be growing now??

The vege patch currently, with carrots in foreground (they also shouldn't be growing now) and hessian encased capsicum plant. To prevent a certain four-legged person accessing and munching on said capsicums. Naughty puppy.

Rampant watermelon. There's about half a dozen fruit on this, about the size of bowling balls. Fingers crossed.
What's growing at your place at the moment?

And now, here is the news ...

2011-11-13T19:41:00.000-08:00

Well, it's hot. That's the news. While we in the tropics had about 15 inches of rain a month ago, followed up by a couple of inches a week ago, the edible part of the garden is rather poorly.
The tomatoes are almost all dead, as is all but the most stubborn of fruit.

However, all the rain has brought the passionfruit back to life. Have you ever smelt a passionfruit flower? If not, do yourself a favour. They have a surprisingly intense, packed-with-punch aroma. Our vine currently has about 20 baby fruit on it, so can't wait for them to drop to the ground and be ready for consumption.

Yesterday I was given some rosellas. About 400g, in fact. This possibly came about because my attempt at rosella growing failed and failed dismally. But a friend "let" me make some jam from hers. Never made rosella jam before, so it was a bit fiddly, but not too bad really, in terms of length of time it took. And it's rather tasty too. Perhaps that's the three tonnes of sugar, but you only live once!

Behold the parched vege patch. With shade cloth over the top. Don't think I've shown you that yet, have I?

Pineapple heaven. Think we have three fruit coming on at various stages of development, but still a couple of months to go. We saw potted pineapples, with fruit on them, at a large nursery the other day for $21. Ow!

Trying to save our precious few mangoes (about half a dozen) from the flying foxes. Cute, huh?

I know, I know. This is not an edible plant. This is a ginger. No idea what sort, but isn't it stunning! For most of the year, this plant does not exist, but come the wet season, and up she pops. And I think it's appeared early because of that 15 inches of rain we received. I don't mind at all!

Limes. Hurry up and ripen!

Baby bush lemons. My precious!

Absent blogger

2011-10-25T05:05:00.000-07:00

I've been a bad girl. A really, really bad girl. I haven't blogged in like, almost a month! Unforgiveable.
Anyway, hi there - hope you've been well - how's your garden and cooking going?
Just trying to remember everything that's been happening over the past month. Well, two of the three water tanks were empty. It was dry. Very dry. Dry and hot. Did I mention that it was dry?
Anyway, Mr TG&C got around to building a frame around the vege patch and putting some shade cloth over the top.
And then the rain came down. About 15 inches of it, to be precise. I love the rain, have I ever mentioned that? So incredibly refreshing and invigorating. Love it.
So yesterday Mr TG&C did the mowing, for the first time in months. And mulching. Much excitement.
However, the inevitable is still going to happen and the dry season will return. Sigh. So the tomatoes are practically dead. Everything else is dry and withered. Egg plant still seem to be doing ok and there's about half a dozen on the bush atm. Still got a pumpkin on the vine and another on top of the fridge.
Oh, forgot to tell you, the passionfruit is flowering again. It seemed to have forgotten how for a while. And aren't passionfruit flowers some of the nicest ever?
In the meantime, here's some pics taken over the past few weeks of what's been growing.

Octopus salad. With our tomoatoes and lettuce. Octopus grown elsewhere, but it's the thought that counts, right?

Mint. I'm thinking mint sauce and roast lamb. Need I say anything more?

A selection of recent produce harvested. Yes, the corn are little, but they sure were yummy!

A bloke called Nev

2011-09-20T05:10:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'd like to talk to you about our new bestie, Nev.
Nev's a butcher from the Atherton Tableland. Tolga, to be precise.
We found him by word of mouth, as is often the case, when we asked some people on the Tableland if they could recommend a local butcher.
They told us to go find the Bones Knob Butchery at Tolga. Bones Knob? What the?
As you drive into Tolga from the southern end, you will usually see a sign pointing in the general direction of Nev's place.
Now on the day we went there, Nev wasn't officially open. But the door wasn't locked and he was there. So we asked if we could get some meat? After some general discussion, he said we could put in an order and he would deliver it to us. In Cairns. About an hour away.
Nev's butcher shop is out on a farm, with yards right next door. And he told us he only buys his cattle from a few graziers on the Tableland. That was more than good enough for us. This was exactly what we were looking for.
So we put in our order. It was a fairly hefty order, but we do have a big freezer, and we don't like going to the butcher's in town too much if we can avoid it.
Now, Nev got caught up in a few other things, as we all do, and wasn't able to get our order down to us for a week or two. Nev felt terrible about this! And he told us he was throwing in a "small" ham to say sorry for the late delivery.
Like so many men, perhaps he doesn't have a realistic idea of size, because his idea of a small ham, was five kilograms worth. And I had to type that out so you comprehended the sheer size of what he had done. Five kilograms! And it was beautiful. Well, it still is. Being just the two of us, Mr TG&C and I decided there was no way we could eat it all, so husband chopped it up into more manageable segments. We still have one left in the freezer. The best ham ever.
And let me say, all the meat was beautiful. We have and will buy from him again. He delivers, the price is MORE than reasonable and the meat is tasty and it's local.
And Nev's a top bloke. What more could you want?

Of success and failure ....

2011-09-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

What a busy weekend it's been at the TG&C household. Gardening, cooking, oh and housework. Borrrrring!
Back to the fun stuff.
Where to begin. At the beginning, I suppose.
When we bought this shack, there were elements that were pretty ordinary - fences, the soil was crapola, no vege patch (unimaginable!) etc, etc.
So one of the first things we did was install some water tanks. Three in fact. This might seem like a lot, but it's not really. Sure, they fill up quickly, but even if full, they're don't hold enough to see us through the dry season. Water from this trio is used on the vege patch, once a week the "back paddock" gets a watering through the Mr TG&C installed irrigation system, and we use it for drinking water too.
We know this is controversial, but we both grew up on farms where rainwater was de rigeur. My folks even had a thunderbox when I was little. But that's another story.
So we're happy with and love our water tanks.

One of the other things we got into is compost. Compost, compost, compost. We have one of those square, plastic, movable things which isn't ideal, but it does the job for now. With the heat we're experiencing at the moment, the contents are breaking down very quickly. But once it's filled we have to put our kitchen scraps elsewhere, so it gets buried. Which is a bit like running the gauntlet as there is a certain grey person who lives here, who likes digging up smelly things. No, not Mr TG&C.

Our kitchen scraps bin usually gets emptied a couple of times a week and we put everything into it - even onion skins. I know there is divided opinion about this, but we've not noticed a problem. The only things that don't go in the compost are meat and dairy products. We even chuck prawn and other seafood scraps in there. Provided the grey digging person can be restrained sufficiently.

In other garden news, Mr TG&C apparently meant to put our old mop in the bin the night before bin day, and was frustrated that he forgot. So I said, that's just as well. We can use it as a stake! Ergo, it's now a stake. Recycling at it's best.

So here is a snap of some beautiful tomatoes, ripening on the bush. Well, they were until this morning when we noticed that one had been totally decimated by birds and big chunks had been eaten out of another two. I think that's happened to a nearby capsicum too. It's gone! Usually when the grey person chews capsicums (and he is QUITE partial to them) there is a bit left. Not this time. And I cannot find any scraps around the garden. Are the mynah birds getting hungry?

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, yesterday I did my first ever vegetable soup. I'd had to buy celery for the green tomato chutney and thought "what can I do with the rest of this?" So vege soup it was. Went down the vege patch and harvested a carrot and parsnip. Already had onion and garlic in stock, so away we went. And it was bloody good! Like, REALLY good. Mr TG&C had some for lunch today and reckoned it was edible. I think.
Anyway, this afternoon I tried a zucchini relish. Fail. The recipe was just ... bizarre. It come from Mother Dearest and I don't know if she's ever tried it, but it was not a roaring success. Next time I'll turn to Dr Google.

Until then ....

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble ....!

2011-09-16T17:22:00.000-07:00

Salutations and I hope the weekend weather is treating you well. This is part of the reason why we live here. Yeah, baby!
Over the last few days some TG&C produce has made its way into the kitchen for a good ol' cook up.
Tomatoes have been boiled down to make a thick tomato sauce for spag and lasagne-style dishes.
Then there's been the inaugural making of the green tomato chutney. Recipe here: http://allrecipes.com.au/recipe/6797/green-tomato-chutney.aspx
Now, I'm not really one to run down my own cooking and it IS very good (if I do say so myself). However, it's not very tomato-ey. And you have to buy lots of other things that aren't necessarily grown here like green apples and sultanas. So, philosophophically speaking, does that defeat the purpose of growing and cooking with your own? If you have to also buy other stuff?
Would love to hear what you think.
In the meantime, here's some kitchen shots.

From this ....

And this ....

To this!

And this. This be the green tomato chutney. Not very green, is it.

Anyone want to buy a ute? great for shovelling horse pooh in the garden ...

A quick note ...

2011-09-15T20:16:00.000-07:00

Just a quickie, guys.
Cairns Regional Council Friends of the Botanic Gardens advice that this month's Talk and Walk is about "Practical Propagation" by the Gardens' principal propagator Steve Jackson.
Saturday 17th September 0900 - 1200, behind the old Gardens' office - just follow the signs.
Morning tea provided, Members free, Visitors $10.

What's growing ...

2011-09-15T15:15:00.000-07:00

Greetings fellow gardeners and cooks.
Hope you've all had a good week.
Firstly, would like to send a shout out to my mate Gav King, who gave TG&C a shout out this week. And I'd like to congratulate him on being the force behind this week's herb garden initiative in the Cairns CBD. Check it out here: http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2011/09/16/182565_local-news.html.
In the meantime, here's a bit of an update of what's growing at the moment. I have to admit to a growing (pun intended) apprehension about the garden for the next few months, as it's becoming very dry and I know the moisture is going to be just sucked out. I would like to see some temporary shadecloth installed over the main vege patch though I haven't talked husband into that yet. After all, he's most likely the one to be doing the manual labour (I'm the ideas person?) so I really do need to have him onside.

Baby pumpkins growing. Grow, my precious!

Hopefully the next crop of corn, down the "back paddock".

Passionfruit vine. Nice arbor, huh? These two plants are growing on two big palm trees that I requested husband shift as they were very close to the house. It seems only one has survived.

Baby zucchinis, ripe for the pollinating.

Oh yay! Another tomato!

Baby pumpkin.

Watch this space ....

Weekend's happenings

2011-09-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

Buzz, buzz, buzz. Busy little bee.

That's been me this weekend. Sometimes you just want to be slothful and other times you just can't be doing enough. Well, the latter has been me (so far) this weekend. Surely it has to end sometime?

It started with a gift. The gift of soil. Free stuff. Always a bonus. Think I've mentioned before that the soil here is fairly ordinary. Well, some friends were re-doing their front garden and had some leftover soil which they generously donated to our cause. They've had plenty of tomatoes and other produce so it's a fair exchange. Said soil has been used in low patches and to generally top up the level of the garden beds. So that was good and yes, husband did most of the work. As usual.

What else? Well, we've been harvesting again, as per usual so Friday I stewed up some more tomatoes (we had three big bowls full in the fridge) to make a tomato .... thing, for putting in spaghettis and lasagnes, so they're now resting in the freezer. Made the famous coconut and lime cake Friday, using some leftover passionfruit from the freezer for icing. Husband came home from work 2am Saturday and lo-and-behold, there's a slice missing Saturday morning. Hmmmm.

Then the soil donor came over yesterday for a cuppa so let's just say the cake is fairly well gone now. Think there's about two slices left.

Had some MORE leftover passionfruit icing, so made some coconut cupcakes and topped them with that. Mother dearest thinks I'm nuts, making something just to use something up. Well, so be it. I'm officially nuts.

We've had a few sprinkles of rain last night and this morning so the garden would be LOVING that. Has been quite dry.

If anyone out there can give me any tips on how to load recipes onto this site, or cute name suggestions, I'd be most appreciative. Am after something catchy. The winner wins .... the kudos of knowing they came up with the winning name. That's worth it, isn't it? Maybe I'll make you something. If you're within cooee's distance.

Here's some pics to tide you over till next time ....

Chopping lime rind. I find this little chopper absolutely excellent. Oh, and bash the limes a few times before juicing them so they're not so hard.

Frozen passionfruit pulp.

Chopped lime rind. It does a good job of it, hey.

Another damn tomato. Crikey! What a bewdy!

The suspect slice taken from the coconut & lime cake. Hmmmm.

Annihilation.

What's growing ....

2011-09-01T20:03:00.000-07:00

Phew, what a week!
Mother dearest has now returned to her homeland, so there's no more joint cooking adventures, but I'm sure she'll still advise from afar.
Did some horse pooh shovelling with husband earlier in the week, rediscovering some long lost muscles in the process. Only recovering now!

When we bought this place, about five years ago, let's just say the garden was fairly unloved. The soil here is fairly ordinary (being nice, don't want to offend it!) clay soil with v little nice nutrients, so we're trying to build it up with organic matter, compost etc. We are seeing more worms these days which gives us hope. It's far from perfect, but definitely getting better. And as anyone with clay soil knows, drainage is a bit of an issue. We have put in extra drainage since we've been here, but suspect something more substantial is needed. That must wait till we lift the shack.

Baby pineapple. Got two of these growing at the mo. Takes about 18 months to fruit, but def worth the wait!

Baby Tahitian limes. Mmmm. Am considering asking a friend for a branch of their Kaffir lime to graft onto our Tahitian. What do you reckon?

Deeevine. Baby lemons. Not just any lemons, though. These are going to be bush lemons - you know, the bumpy ones. And the best.

Monsterio delicioso. The name says it all. Can you believe I bought this from IGA a couple of years ago for eight bucks?

The latest crop of corn. Fingers crossed. Neighbours dodgy fence in the background.

In the meantime, here's a snapshot of what's growing in the garden atm...

Weekend's events

2011-08-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been nothing if not an action-packed weekend in the TG&C household. A little less of the gardening and a little more of the cooking.

Firstly, mother dearest and I managed to have a more successful bout of making passionfruit jubes. Delish, let me tell you - strained passionfruit pulp (about 15), caster sugar, gelatine, water. Last time we didn't put enough gelatine in, but this time we did. Yumbo.

I had had the recipe for a while and re-discovered it in my search for passionfruit recipes out of the norm. You know, anything other than on pavlova.

I am planning a recipe section on this blog, but while I'm learning to drive, if anyone wants the recipe, drop me a line.

Other gourmet (??!) creations include tomato chilli jam, which we found in a Gourmet Traveller cooking book lent to us.

This went particularly well with the much talked about zucchini and smoked salmon fritters. I do have to say they need "something", but not sure yet what that something is. Couldn't believe how much moisture to wring out of the zucchinis!

Still got four zucchinis in the crisper to use so more ideas are gratefully accepted.

Also boiled down some of the abundance of tomatoes to make a tomato sauce - in the same vein as tinned tomatoes. so we now have two batches, happily freezing away.

In other news, Mother Dearest and I had to go to Big W yesterday to get some photos printed, and I suggested that seeing as we were there, that we should just poke our noses into the gardening section.

Well!

They had fig trees! and raspberries! and rhubarb plants!

Muchos excitement. Particularly re: the fig tree. Think it cost $12. There was another customer looking at them at the same time as us, and while Mum didn't think I should buy the fig, he said to give it a go. He was a mature gentleman from Innisfail, originally from Greece, who said he has one in Innisfail and it's going well. So fingers crossed. He also showed me the best one to buy and said when I plant it, put some rocks in the hole, because where he comes from in Greece, they spring up between the rocks. Oh, and lime. He was a great source of information. Need more interactions like that.

So we also bought the rhubarb plants (have you ever made rhubarb jam??) but gave the raspberries a miss. I have heard they grow "up the hill", but not too sure about down here on the lowlands.

What have you bought from the nursery this weekend, or made from your own produce?

Almost wordless Friday

2011-08-26T05:41:00.000-07:00

Baby passionfruits. I think these are the purple ones

Inspired by a good friend, this is my idea of wordless (almost) Friday. Do a few captions count? Here's the story of our garden, at the moment, told photographically.

The citrus are fruiting! The citrus are fruiting!

Wild sown tomato running free.

Something pretty, lettuce, something pretty.

Eggplant. We don't eat a lot of this, but we're learning!

The baby butternut pumpkins.

Corn sown down the bottom of the ornamental garden where we recently got rid of an unwanted tree.

Snowpea teepee.

The passionfruit vine. Donated as seedlings by the next door neighbours.

Zucchinis. What to do with them?

Baby jap pumpkin

What's growing in the garden

2011-08-25T04:50:00.000-07:00

Well, here we have it, late August, almost Spring (!) and we are overwhelmed, nay inundated with produce.
Just proves what can be achieved.
I have to say, from the beginning, that most of this year's crops were sown and planted in consultation with Sheree Scott's Moon Gardening Calendar. It has been invaluable and we have noticed the difference by using it this year, compared to previous years when we didn't have it.
We're finally starting to pick a few carrots, which are almost a year-round part of our diet, so great to be able to grow our own. Husband is picking tomatoes daily, though the snow peas have slowed down to almost nil. He has planted some more elsewhere in the "ornamental" section of the garden so hopefully we get some more before the wet season sets in. He has been busy blanching and freezing them, so the freezer is gradually filling up.
The zucchinis keep coming and almost every morning there is hand pollinating to be done. This is always a race between husband and I as to who was responsible for the pollinating.
We've got some jap pumpkin vines growing in the front ornamental garden and managed to find both male and female flowers so finally have another pumpkin growing.
I bought a butternut the other week to make "good" pumpkin soup for mother dearest, planted the dried out seeds in the back ornamental garden, and they're already waving in the breeze.

There's plenty of passionfruit - made some passionfruit jellies last night, though have to admit I haven't tasted them yet.

And much to my delight, yesterday I found one of our pineapples is growing a baby. They take a long time to grow, but so worth it!

So recent meals have been pretty well comprised of our own produce. Tonight's salad with salmon rissoles was comprised of our lettuce, our tomatoes, a friend's cucumber (Thanks Leah!) and some marinated fetta from Gallo.

Oh yes, there's also a couple of pawpaws growing out the front, and our citrus fruit FINALLY have some babies on them.

The mango tree in the front yard also has some fruit set, though not much as it took a rather severe pruning earlier in the year.

The dawg guards that day's produce

There's a lettuce hiding behind that pumpkin leaf!

Lettuce

More lettuce

Oh wait, there's another lettuce!

Baby tomato bush in the ornamental section

Baby chilli in the ornamental section

More photos over the weekend, hopefully.

Of failures and discoveries ...

2011-08-22T04:05:00.000-07:00

Well, due to popular demand, I am compelled to recount my most recent failure.
Apparently that's a good thing ... right? That way you'll see I'm not perfect? Eeek.
Well, mashed parsnip was not a success in the TG&C household last week.
I failed to listen to my mother's advice (!) and decided to roast the home-grown parsnip before mashing it. Uh uh. Mother dearest advised boiling it first. She's from the boiling generation, you see.
I did heed the online recipe instructions, and did not roast the core. This is where the fibrous bit is.
Well, the parsnip sat in our aged oven for abt half an hour and failed to soften. So it was served roasted. Sort of.
However, I am determined to tell you about at least one success. Recently we had a spectacular lamb roast. Oh so tender. Not so much due to my cooking, I hasten to add, but due to the beautifully-prepared hunk of meat. Thank you, Earlville Butcher! Anyway, as we all know, with a piece of roast meat, one must serve roast vegetables. So with our piece of baby sheep we had roast beetroot, carrot, and parsnip, all from our garden, along with some briefly boiled zucchini.
It seems we currently have about six zucchinis sitting in the crisper so we're researching more recipes. I have one for a zucchini and smoked salmon fritter and mother dearest suggested a zucchini relish. Am i game enough? Suggestions? Preferences?
Oh, have been absent for a cupla days, been on a roadtrip with the aforesaid Mother Dearest, to Cooktown. More research needed, but the chef at the Sovereign Resort seems to be rather brilliant. We had spectacular meals both nights, including potato mash with .... truffle oil! Must buy some, don't think there's any grown here in the tropics. Suggestions on where to buy, please?
On another note, I would just like to say, keep the comments coming, I'm loving the feedback and suggestions. All very new to this blogging caper, so am open to ideas.
'Till next time ....

Today's harvest

2011-08-17T00:16:00.000-07:00

Greetings, followers, if in fact there are any out there.
Today, from our garden, we harvested a few things.
Firstly, there was a couple of yellow passionfruit, which I have added to the pile for future use. Am thinking of a little passionfruit lolly for them. Found a very smple recipe in a mag ages ago, which I did try last week, but failed to put enough gelatine into on first attempt. Will advise how attempt number 2 goes.
Secondly, there was another damn zucchini. We now have about three of our own in the crisper, and after making a HUGE batch of mum's famous (well, famous with me, anyway) zucchini soup last week, I think we have enough of that. Mother sent a recipe for a yummy looking zucchini and smoked salmon fritter the other week so might give that a crack.
Oh, and tomatoes. we seem to be picking ripe tomatoes every day. Today there were heirlooms, grosse lisses and a throwback yellow one. This chap certainly seems ripe to touch and seems to be covered in a furry down. Will advise what he turns out like.
And then, yes, I know, the list is never ending, there is parsnip. I'm going to attempt a parsnip mash. Sounds fancy, doesn't it. Our parsnips have not been huge, we think that's because the "good" soil we have in our vege patch is not very deep, so when the parsnips (or carrots) hit the crappy stuff, they give up.

Today's bounty

Husband's sun and oven dried tomatoes

Passionfruit pulp

Will advise on success (or otherwise) of these projects in due course. If there's interest, that is!